The opposition never changed

Many youth groups that are eager for change are apparently starting to reevaluate their relationship with the opposition, especially after last week’s demonstration that exposed the true colours of some Majority Bloc members.

While this step has come late, I believe it’s important to recognize and applaud the courage and honesty of young activists, who find no problem in changing their mind about certain issues over which they previously supported the opposition – even if this step is only limited to questioning the real motives behind the Majority Bloc’s actions.

The Majority Bloc brought nothing new during their demonstration at the Iradah Square. While some of them had their reactionary approaches exposed, the fact is that all of them are hiding similar reactionary views. The same group, including Musallam Al-Barrak, Ahmad Al-Saadoun, as well as all religious and tribal members, stood firmly against Kuwaiti women acquiring  political rights. They threatened to stage demonstration throughout Kuwait, or in their words “from Kuwait City to Jahra”, if these rights are enforced.

They are the same politicians, in person and in their political approach, who stand in the face of celebration, holding music concerts or Ramadan celebrations. Their religious-tribal mindset is behind regulations that include forcing segregation in public schools, which is against the constitution and that clearly stands against parents’ rights to raise their children – let alone teenagers – the way they want.

The same group created a case of inequality in the citizenship law when they insisted that non-Muslims are never naturalized citizens. They are the same group of politicians who passed audiovisual and press regulations that limit freedom of expression and publication. They are behind the campaign defending the government’s restrictions on people’s rights to public gatherings. They are the reason behind social, political and even economic underdevelopment the country has been suffering for the past four decades.

Most recently, the opposition yielded to the government’s orders by which the people’s right to demonstration was limited to a certain square in Kuwait, in violation of the constitution that they continue to claim they seek to protect. Last but not least, the opposition is behind calls in recent months to limit construction of churches or Hussaniyas (Shiite mosques), and put all necessary issues on hold to legislate laws protecting Prophets and religious figures from insult.

The opposition never changed. There’s nothing they did during last week’s demonstration which they never did before.

In the end, I would like to make a suggestion to Kuwait’s Information Minister, who I believe should join the opposition following recent statements in which he demanded “freedom and the right of pluralism for the Syrian people”. He made these statements in Kuwait, where his ministry oversees the implementation of a law that bans expression of ‘different’ opinions in the media, and where the government prevents any mass demonstrations for Kuwaitis outside the Iradah Square. —Al-Qabas

By Abdullatif Al-Duaij

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